1hEpybB

The Two Conquests of Zhang zhung and the Many Lig-Kings of Bon 31
trix of oral and written traditions, as by chance has been preserved in early
Dunhuang time slices, indeed has informed early Bon identity discourse.
It also remains to be established by which medium the derivation was realised:
oral or written modes of transmission. Generally, the formation of
self-conscious Bon narratives as we gradually see them emerge in textual
sources of the turn of the first millennium AD, seems rooted in orally transmitted
or adjusted narrative traditions. The construction of the Bon narrative
of the conquest of Zhang zhung and the revenge of the widowed Zhang
zhung queen by means of the awe-inspiring ascetic powers of sNang bzher
lod po may be a revealing, yet late counterpart of the dynamics and formative
matrix of emerging Bon narratives in self-consciously Bon texts, such as
is more clearly apparent in earlier sources, such as the Klu ’bum, mDo chen
po bzhi, mDo ’dus, gZer myig, the crucially important early, somewhat eclectic
Gling grags Bon historical narratives, and so forth.
In a prospective manner we can say that based on the information reviewed
so far, we probably would be well advised to put our wagers on one
conquest during Khri Srong btsan sgam po’s rule, and therefore assume that
PT1287, in its corrected order, presents the more original narrative and that
the Ma nub is a derivative narration, to which, embedded in a clustering of
rather diverse narratives, a distinct polemical vector of identity has been
added; in any case, this Bon text clearly has an axe to grind. Feeling inclined
to put my wager thus, I now face the burden of proof, of explaining in detail
how the Ma nub cluster of narratives is construed and relates from the basic
PT1287 paradigm of the fall of Zhang zhung. This may be yet another instance
where taking the narrative structure of history into account may contribute
to settling a thorny, stale-mate historiographical debate.
The Tripartite Structure of the Bon ma nub pa’i gtan tshigs
Let us look at the narrative structure of the Ma nub and see what it reveals
about its history. The story appears a conflation of three main subplots:
I. Betrayal of the Zhang zhung King by his junior wife;
II. Intermezzo on the karmic origins of the intrigue: the Bodhisattva
story;
III. Punishment of the Tibetan Emperor by Gyer spungs sNang bzher lod
po and its resolution.
These three plots also appear in that order in Bru rGyal ba g-yung drung’s
(1242–90) rDzogs pa chen po zhang zhung snyan rgyud kyi lo rgyus rnam thar
dang bcas. 28 Section I, again, consists of three fairly discrete (but probably
not historical) sections:
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28
Henceforth Bru; see also Appendix.